


That's the Spirit!

by PrincexofxFlowers



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ghost!Lance, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:30:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincexofxFlowers/pseuds/PrincexofxFlowers
Summary: Keith was so tired of living in his dumpy apartment. He was tired of the leaky windows. He was tired of the broken a/c. He was tired of the flickering electricity. He was tired of the finicky plumbing. He was tired of the abundance of ghosts that frequented the building that he constantly had to ignore so they wouldn’t figure out that he could see them.---Keith sees dead people. Sometimes they're attractive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted anything in months and it's Halloween so have the least scary ghost story on the planet!

Keith was so tired of living in his dumpy apartment. He was tired of the leaky windows. He was tired of the broken a/c. He was tired of the flickering electricity. He was tired of the finicky plumbing. He was tired of the abundance of ghosts that frequented the building that he constantly had to ignore so they wouldn’t figure out that he could see them.

He usually didn’t have a problem with that last one. Keith was pretty antisocial to begin with and most of the ghosts that inhabited the building had been ghosts for a while and had therefore given up on trying to communicate with the living long before Keith moved in. This resulted in him picking up some pretty hot gossip about his neighbors though, as none of them bothered to stop talking when someone walked by. Keith stopped eating at the monthly hospitality potlucks pretty quick. There’s only so much eye contact you can avoid making with someone before they start wondering if you know about some of their more private and strange habits. 

Then they started talking about him. Keith wasn’t sure if he slipped up and accidentally made eye contact with one of them or reacted to something they said, or maybe they were just bored with their previous bit of gossip and moved on to the next person. Whatever the case was, it was time to move. If they talked about him that meant they would watch him, and if they watched him they could figure out that he knew they were there. Keith wasn’t about to risk that.

So on his next day off he got in his car and went to look at other apartment complexes in the area. The first one he went to seemed to be nice from the outside but it was across the street from a church with a small private graveyard in the back and Keith didn’t even bother getting out of his car before he left. The second one was close to an elementary school and, judging by the number of minivans in the parking lot and the playground equipment outside, home to many families with many kids. Another no. The next two he looked at were even more dumpy than his current apartment was but had, as far as he could tell, no spectral residents, so he decided he would remember them and give some serious thought to exactly what he was willing to put up with more- ghosts or living in a hole in a wall.

The last complex he went to seemed to be the most promising, from the outside at least. It was on the edge of a fairly decent neighborhood, not quite nice but a definite improvement from where he was, and it wasn’t next to anything that screamed with potential to be a hot spot for ghosts. He met the landlady with a surprisingly not awkward handshake and she took him up to one of the empty apartments.

“This floor is pretty quiet generally. Most of the people who rent here have timeshares all over the place and they’re usually gone for a few weeks at a time.” She unlocked the door and gestured for Keith to walk in ahead of her. “Utilities are included but you’ll have to do laundry at the laundromat down the street.”

“That’s fine,” Keith said as he looked around. The walls were white but there were plenty of windows and everything looked clean so that was at least one star in Keith’s book. “Does everything work? The a/c where I’m at now has been broken since two days after I moved in and the electricity fritzes out whenever it wants.”

The landlady looked equal parts scandalized and offended. “Of course it all works! I wouldn’t be trying to get you to live here if it didn’t. Those people should be ashamed of themselves.”

Keith shrugged and walked into what he assumed would be a bedroom.

“There’s lots of closet space,” she supplied helpfully.

“Good to know.” Keith didn’t need a lot of closet space but he slid the door open and looked at it anyway.

“The bathroom is over this way,” she said when he closed the door. She lead him across the hall through a door. “It’s usually the selling point if I’m honest.”

Keith could see why. It was surprisingly spacious, with a separate bathtub and shower and a toilet against one wall, and a sink set into a full countertop against the opposite wall. There was a large, deep set window above the bathtub, which Keith thought was a very poor decision, but it did allow for ample natural light to spill into the room, making it seem very serene. It was a weird vibe to get from a bathroom. The only real problem he could see was the boy perched on the window sill above the bathtub staring at them but Keith was doing his best to ignore that since the landlady hadn’t said anything about him.

“Well?”

“The plumbing works? Hot water and everything?”

“What part of ‘of course everything works’ did you not get?” She strode forward and turned a knob on the bathtub and water flooded out of the faucet and quickly began steaming. “I’m showing you a fully functional, clean, apartment here. No catches. I promise. So what do you think?”

Keith casually swept his eyes over the room, and found that the boy in the window was now staring at the water swirling down the drain, feet up on the window sill and arms wrapped around his knees. Keith watched him for a moment and turned back to the landlady. “Can I sleep on it and give you a decision tomorrow?”

“Sure. But based off what you’ve said, I’d be jumping to get out of where you’re at for the slightest improvement.” She turned off the water and lead Keith back out of the apartment.

“You’re not wrong,” he said under his breath.

Keith took his time driving back to his apartment, coasting down the quiet back streets so he’d have less traffic to worry about. If he were a normal person his choice would be obvious; The last apartment he looked at was a vast improvement from where he currently lived. It was closer to his work and his school, and seemed to be much more well-kept. Sure, he’d have to go to a laundromat but eight out of ten times he had to do that anyway due to the machines in his building being busted.

Unfortunately, Keith was not a normal person and he had to take into account the fact that the new place may or may not come with a ghost for a roommate and Keith wasn’t sure he was willing to put up with the constant stress of pretending he couldn’t see him.

The other two places he was considering didn’t have any ghosts inhabiting any of the rooms that he was in but the rooms themselves were in worse shape than the place where he already lived. There was also no guarantee that there would continue to be no ghosts there.

Was the uncertain promise of not having to deal with ghosts for any prolonged length of time worth the very certain promise of uncomfortably sweaty nights and water damaged walls? He honestly wasn’t sure.

Keith parked in his usual spot and trudged into his building, still weighing the pros and cons of his options. He didn’t spare a glance at the congregation of ghosts lounging around in the mailroom and headed straight for the elevators only to be faced with a sign informing the residents that the hot water was no longer functioning and that maintenance was unsure when they’d be able to fix it.

Keith groaned and jabbed a finger into the call button for the elevator, bouncing his knee in attempt to expel his frustration. In his peripheral he saw some of the ghosts peering around the corner at him, presumably to inspect the noise.

“I swear, sometimes I think that kid can see us.”

Keith felt his blood run cold. He was positive he turned a few shades paler and he prayed it wasn’t noticeable. He shifted his weight and started bouncing his other leg to cover the sudden tenseness of his stance.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you think that?”

“Well sometimes he-”

The elevator doors opened and Keith didn’t waste any time hurrying in to escape from the scrutiny of the dead. As soon as the doors closed he pulled out his phone and dialled a number.

“Hey, this is Keith, I came by to look at an apartment earlier? I know I said I’d sleep on it but I was wondering if the end of the week was too soon to move in.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Keith’s experience there were two kinds of ghosts that never stopped talking, even to living people and one was much easier to deal with than the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to restart this chapter 4 times but I think I'm finally mostly happy with it!

Keith didn’t waste any time telling his current landlord that he’d be moving. He turned in the last month of rent that he owed before he left for school the next morning and he started packing as soon as he got back.

Packing everything took a few days and a lot of effort, but he told himself that it would be worth it. He really hoped it would be worth it.

Whether or not moving and all of the hassle it entailed would end up paying off, actually moving in went a lot smoother than he’d been expecting it to.

He didn’t even see the ghost until several hours after he’d started moving in. He’d lugged all of his boxes and furniture upstairs and into the apartment without incident, he’d even stuck a couple boxes in the bathroom to be unpacked later without any sign of the ghost. He was so relieved about having so few problems that he ended up unpacking and shelving all of his movies when he sat down to take a break, purely because he was in a good mood.

He’d done it. He was in the clear. He’d found a good apartment without any ghosts. He didn’t know where the ghost from the bathroom went but he didn’t care. This new apartment was going to take so much stress out of his life, he could already feel his shoulders losing some of their tension. In fact, if someone else were in his apartment to witness him carrying a box of books to his bedroom, they might have accused him of having a spring in his step, but Keith didn’t care. Why? Because there was no one else in his apartment.

“I don’t know what kind of movies I thought you watched, but these weren’t it.”

Keith jumped and the box he was holding slid out of his hands and landed right on his foot. “Shit!”

“That’s gotta hurt.”

Keith ignored the voice and, for the moment, the sense of dread he felt at who he figured it was coming from, and knelt to inspect his foot. He was still wearing shoes, which added a little bit of padding, but he was positive he’d have a huge bruise.

He stood up and, under the pretense of ‘walking it off’, turned around and headed for his couch in an effort to see where the voice was coming from without giving away that he could actually hear it. There was a slim chance that the ghost hadn’t realized he’d been heard and Keith was going to hold onto it with both hands for as long as he could.

A ghost stood there in front of Keith’s case of movies, browsing through them as if he’d been invited over. His back was towards Keith so he couldn’t see his face, but the dark skin and short brown hair gave Keith a pretty good idea that this was the ghost from his bathroom.

“The last guy who lived here was really boring- nothing but action movies and porn. He also couldn’t cook to save his life but he was trying to learn- which I respect, but the place always smelled horrible whenever he made anything.” The ghost turned around and Keith looked back down at his foot, pulling his shoe and sock off to inspect the damage.

“You look closer to my age at least. How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty?”

Keith bit the inside of his cheek and didn’t correct the ghost. Suddenly his view of his foot was obstructed by a face hanging upside down in front of his own, uncomfortably close, and Keith tried hard to look through the dark blue eyes staring into his own.

“You can’t be over twenty-three.”

Keith sighed and slouched back into the couch cushions, giving up on trying to see his foot. The ghost was hovering over him, sitting cross legged upside down in the air, with his hands tucked into his lap. He was bouncing his foot and staring at Keith with eyes so bright it was unnerving, and Keith couldn't stop himself from thinking that for a person close to nineteen or twenty years old he sure acted like a little kid. Keith ran a hand down his face and closed his eyes, already tired of pretending he couldn’t see him.

He fully expected the ghost to keep rambling at him- the talkative ones usually didn’t ever stop talking- but the next few minutes were quiet. Keith cautiously opened his eyes and found the ghost still hovering in front of him, right side up now, and looking down at his lap with the same strange expression he’d had while watching the water swirling down the drain in the bathroom last time he’d seen him.

“You can’t see me either, huh?” 

Keith felt something unpleasant twist in his chest and he stood up, careful to avoid touching the ghost. He toed off his remaining shoe and walked back over to the box he’d dropped, ignoring the sour feeling settling in his stomach.

He wanted to kick himself for not noticing. He’d been trying so hard to not let on that he could see the ghost that he’d only allowed himself brief sweeping glances over him but now that he’d actually looked at him for a moment it was obvious.

His clothes weren’t old. Sure they weren’t high fashion, but they were in style. 

In Keith’s experience there were two kinds of ghosts that never stopped talking, even to living people and one was much easier to deal with than the other. 

The first kind- the easy kind- were the chatterboxes; the ones who loved talking just to talk and didn’t care that they weren’t being heard.

The second kind were the new ones. The ones who were alive not that long ago. The ones who weren’t used to being dead yet. 

And Keith had just moved in with one.

Fantastic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think as far as updates go I'm going to try for a new chapter every other week. The breakdown of events that I have so far, I think, is gonna result in relatively short chapters but I have a pretty rough outline of what I want to happen so it'll be around 6 or 7 chapters altogether.
> 
> That being said I have 2 ways this could go- a more serious, mystery type of story or a general fluff and angst piece. Both plots have a bit of all of those things in them but there's a definite genre difference between them. The mystery one would probably be a bit longer than the other one and I know I'm not doing a good job explaining this but I just thought I'd throw it out there and see if any of you had a preference. I wouldn't introduce the mystery plot until after this next chapter so it's not like I can't do any more for this until I make a decision, I was just wondering what you guys thought.
> 
> Anyway, that's all! Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued!
> 
> I'll be honest I don't have any idea for an update schedule on this. I told myself that if I ever did a multi chapter fic I wouldn't start uploading it until I had all of the chapters written but here I am with this sort of prologue and nothing after it finished. Life has been kind of busy lately but it's calming down now so I'll have more time to write more for this story starting this weekend!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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